Brussels, 23/06/2003 (Agence Europe) - On 20 June, the European Commission presented a proposal of directive recommending compulsory fitting of safety belts in all new kinds of vehicles marketed from July 2004. To date, only individual cars have had to be fitted with safety belts. Once the new Commission proposal has been adopted, all other categories of vehicles would also have to be equipped with safety belts, namely minibuses, coaches, light commercial vehicles, lorries, etc. In total, nearly two million commercial vehicles will be concerned each year by this obligation. This measure comes within the context of the European action programme on road safety aimed to reduce the number of road victims by half by 2010.